Dilapidated Infrastructure in America or Wars in Foreign Countries; Which One Has the Priority?

Infrastructure of the United States which considers itself the superpower of the world is in a state of emergency.

Minnesota Bridge collapses in seconds and leads to the death of 13 people and wounds more than 145. This heading was shocking enough to fill the local media in 2007. The incident, however, was not the only incident of its kind in the United States. The worn-out infrastructure of the country leads to numerous clear and hidden disasters in America each year.

"The video depicts a worn-out bridge near the Trump Tower in New York"

The metals and materials used in bridges are old, rotten, and in danger of collapse. The statistics show that more than 70,000 bridges in America need to be replaced or fundamentally repaired. This number accounts for one ninth of the whole bridges in the United States. As American Society of Civil Engineers says, more than 32 percent of the roads in the United States are obsolete and in need of urgent repairs.

The list continues with other infrastructures. As Philip K Howard writes:

Almost every category of U.S. infrastructure is in a dangerous or obsolete state — roads and bridges, power generation and transmission, water treatment and delivery, ports and air traffic control

The officials and administrative managers of the country quail the issue by claiming the lack of finance is the root of the problem. This is while the analyses show that delaying the maintenance and repairs would make the costs more during the time. The Fiscal Times, in an analytic article, writes:

Delays due to infrastructure bottlenecks cost about $200 billion per year on railroads, $50 billion per year on roads and $33 billion on inland waterways. America’s antiquated power grid wastes 7 percent of the electricity it transmits, or about $30 billion worth of electricity annually. The wasted electricity from the obsolete power grid is the same as the output of 200 average coal-burning power plants — causing an extra 280 million tons of carbon to spew into the air each year.

The budget of the infrastructure maintenance which is a priority for each nation is transferred to other sections like wars and military finances. “where are we going to get the money?" The answer to this recurrently asked question by officials should be sought in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world in which the US is apparently fight the terrorism.

The Manquehue Institute for Strategic Studies is a civic organization that pursues both the development of strategic views on main topics related to Latin American countries aimed at the local people, and projecting a faithful image of this region to the world.